by Vicki Lane
But she perked right up at the question. Abandoning the pretense of eating, she planted her elbows on the table and began to sing the praises of someone called Giles of Glastonbury.
“Nigel, you know, the one who did my hair, says that Giles is the most amazing medium—Nigel attended one of his readings years ago, right after his mother died, and he was able to talk to her through Giles and find out all sorts of things he needed to know about her estate. I mean, there was real communication—she told him where she’d hidden some important papers and she warned him about his then-boyfriend who was stealing from him and anyhoo—I was telling Nigel how I sometimes wished that I could just call up Harry and talk to him about my problems—he was so wise and patient and fatherly—at times I think he’s the only one of my husbands I ever really loved …”
Harry—otherwise Harold Holst—had indeed been old enough to be Gloria’s father. Since our own father had decamped, never to be seen again, when Gloria was only four, it was perhaps not so strange that she would have been attracted to this kind older man … And then, of course, there was the money.
Stop it, Elizabeth, and listen to what she’s saying.
“… of course Harry tied things up very nicely, I’m sure, but sometimes his children …”
Oh, yes. Those grown children of Holst and his late wife. They hadn’t been a bit pleased when Poppa, as they all called him, had married a young wife, capable of bearing any number of half brothers and sisters to share in Poppa’s bounty. But, as it happened, that hadn’t happened—though I know it wasn’t for lack of trying, as Gloria had made clear.
I wondered what the terms of the will had been—I remembered Gloria saying that there had been some dispute but she was obviously exceedingly well off.
“… and I do miss him so much. If I could just have one little talk with him and ask him what to do about Jerry. You know, Harry was always so marvelous at giving advice. He made me feel safe … and he understood me …”
Gloria’s turquoise-blue eyes were just at the edge of tears and once again I found myself pitying my poor little rich girl sister. Two times in one hour had to be a first. I reached for her hand but could manage only an awkward pat. “I’m sorry, Glory. I wish there was something I could—”
The turquoise-blue eyes steadied on me. “As a matter of fact, Lizzy, there is something …”
“Hey, Mum, it was brilliant up there! You and Aunt Gloria should have come too.”
I looked up from the pile of unfolded laundry on the bed to see Laurel, her stubby braids adorned with wilting daisies, grinning at me from the bedroom door. My mind had been so busy with trying to figure out how to get out of the promise I’d just made my sister that I hadn’t heard Laurel return.
“Hey, Laur—Glory wanted to walk on the hard road—we only went as far as Miss Birdie’s. But listen, when you were at the top, did you happen to see a big black SUV come up our road?”
Laurel dropped her knapsack. “Nope, I couldn’t see the road. I was down at the northern end of the fence line.” She came and stood by me and began pulling the dish towels from the pile of laundry and folding them neatly.
“By the way, Mum, the fence at that end needs some work. Some of the barbed wire is lying on the ground. I hunted around till I located the staples that had popped out and banged them back in with a rock but the repair job is seriously sketchy. One of the guys probably ought to go up with fence tools and fix it before a cow leans on it again.”
She flapped a blue plaid linen dish towel to shake out some of the wrinkles. “What black SUV are you talking about? Were you expecting someone?”
I gave her the brief version of the mysterious Hummer and Gloria’s insistence that it was one of her husband’s friends looking for her. Even before I’d come to the end of my tale, Laurel was shaking her head.
“What do you want to bet it was some lost sightseer? Or Witnesses with Watchtowers? A stalker? Boy, Aunt Glory’s something else—”
Laurel clapped her hand over her mouth and looked toward the doorway. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Oops! Where is she anyway?”
“On the front porch, making some phone calls,” I said. “Making reservations.”
I smoothed out a stiff and scratchy sun-dried towel and began to fold it, not trusting myself to go on in an adult fashion. I like to think that my daughters and I have no secrets from each other but though I like to think it, I know it isn’t so. There is much I don’t know about their love lives; sometimes I’ve learned of a new man only after he’s been discarded—or done the discarding. I only know what I’m told and I try really hard not to ask.
By the same token, I don’t tell the girls everything. I try to present a façade that is strong and serene, above such petty emotions as curiosity … jealousy … annoyance …
Right.
“Reservations? Like for dinner somewhere?” Laurel plucked the napkins one by one from the heap of clothes and linens. “You don’t iron these everyday ones, do you?”
“Not those. Just folding them will be fine. No, the reservations are for a weekend workshop in Hot Springs—a psychic workshop with someone called Giles of Glastonbury.”
Laurel’s lips quirked. My skeptical take on such things is well known to my family and friends. I don’t insist that all such stuff is made-up baloney. In fact, I’ve had a couple of very strange experiences that I can’t really explain—yet another part of my life I don’t talk about. But I do believe that at least some of the New Age gurus infesting the Asheville area are little more than scam artists.
“I know, Mum—don’t get you started. But at least it’ll give you a break from Aunt Gloria for a few days.”
“Not really.” I was struggling to fold a fitted sheet—an origami-like skill that has always eluded me. “She wants me to go with her.”
“… late again … all night … later …”
The message on the voice mail had been left while I was down closing up the chickens and Gloria was on the porch in the midst of another interminable phone call. The words had been garbled—wherever Phillip had called from, the reception was poor. Not unusual, in this county of mountains and valleys and deep, dark hidden coves. Not surprising either, since these hidden coves are exactly the sorts of places the sheriff and his men often find themselves—called to break up family disputes, surveilling (is that a word?) suspected marijuana patches or the far worse meth labs.
I looked at the lemon pound cake waiting on the counter and the remains of supper drying out on top of the stove. The long and erratic hours a cop had to keep, Phillip had once warned, invariably put a strain on his relationships.
Invariably.
Was this what I wanted?
Suddenly the idea of a weekend in Hot Springs at the elegant Mountain Magnolia Inn seemed appealing. Gloria could commune with her late husband and I … well, I could spend some time thinking about this wedded state I was about to enter—and about Phillip Hawkins.
I scraped the unappetizing remains of the dinner into the chicken bucket and went in search of the letter from Aunt Dodie. This time I would read it and pay attention.
The shriek was part of the dream I was having—Aunt Dodie’s response to my telling her I had to get married. But the persistent knocking, followed instantly by a hand on my shoulder shaking me awake, had no part of my dream chat with Dodie.
“Lizzy! He was there! Right in my bedroom! For god’s sake, where’s Phillip?”
Chapter 11
The Queen of Hearts
Thursday, May 17
Gloria stood gibbering beside the bed as I pulled myself into consciousness—only to realize that Phillip still wasn’t home, though the luminescent dial on the clock at the bedside proclaimed the hour to be 4:23.
It was mid-morning when he finally showed up, obviously exhausted after an all-night stakeout of a suspected meth lab, culminating in the arrest of four suspects and an abortive chase up a wooded mountain slope after three more. Phillip was filthy, smelly, and
uncommunicative, saying no, he didn’t need any breakfast—just a long hot shower and some sleep.
And Gloria was freaking out, insisting that he listen to her story of the man she called the Eyebrow and the thing she’d found under her pillow. Grabbing Phillip’s arm, she positioned herself in front of him to prevent an escape and began to pour out her story.
“Lizzy went to bed but I sat up, hoping you’d get back soon and I could tell you about this creep who’s trying to frighten me. But you didn’t get back and you didn’t get back and finally I just gave up and decided to go to bed. I fell asleep right away …”
Phillip’s red-rimmed eyes drifted toward the hall leading to our bedroom but he stood patiently listening to Gloria’s story.
“… so it wasn’t till after four that I woke up and realized there was something under my pillow, something lumpy. Well, of course I leaped out of bed—it might have been a mouse or god knows what—out here in the wilds I know anything’s possible and Lizzy’s so careless about—”
“Gloria.” Phillip held up one dirty hand and I could see the scratches across its back, evidence that the chase had led him through the cruel briars and brambles so common in abandoned fields. He looked utterly exhausted. “Could you show me what it was you found?”
My sister seemed for the first time to notice his state of complete fatigue. Without continuing her dissertation on my failures as a housewife, she led the way back to the guest room.
“There it is!” She whisked away the pillow to reveal her find: a beheaded Barbie doll in a gold lamé evening gown. Lying a few inches away atop a half-torn card—a queen of hearts—the blond head smirked up at us.
“You see! This has to be Jerry’s doing. On my last birthday he threw a big party for me at the club and that was the theme—the Queen of Hearts—invitations, centerpieces, they were all done with big blowups of the card with my head on the queen’s body.”
Gloria leaned in for a closer look at the doll. “I even had a gold lamé dress—but not tacky like this one.” It was hard to tell if fear outweighed annoyance in her tone as she regarded the bizarre little display. “He must have walked right into the house—I told Lizzy she ought to have an alarm system but she just laughed and said she’d lost the key to the front door years ago. Well, I ask you …”
When I tried to stem the flow of my sister’s rambling narrative, suggesting that perhaps it would be kind to let Phillip get some sleep before we pursued this case of the Barbie Who Lost Her Head, he ignored me—they ignored me.
Phillip went into full cop mode—checking the French door that led from the guest room to the outside, bagging up the Barbie pieces along with the card—and all of the time treating Gloria’s babbling as seriously as if a major crime had been committed.
At last he had finished and my sister had allowed him to get a shower. I followed him into the bedroom, Molly trailing close behind.
“Sorry about last night, sweetheart.” Phillip yawned hugely and planted a perfunctory kiss on my cheek. “We were in a dead zone and I couldn’t call earlier …”
He yawned again, tossed his robe to the foot of the bed, and slid between the sheets. “Just a few hours and I’ll be good to go … tell your sister I’ll …”
His voice trailed off and I could see that he was half asleep already.
“Phillip,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I’m wondering … how do we know Gloria didn’t put that silly doll under her pillow herself? I sure didn’t see any signs of—”
He was curled on his side, his face covered by his arm to block the light from the uncurtained windows. I could hear his breathing, slow and regular as if he were already asleep.
I stood and watched him for a few moments, torn by contradictory emotions. Part of me wanted to lie down beside him, inhale that clean soap smell, and be soothed by the sound of his breathing.
The other part of me was completely and irrationally ticked off that he’d paid so much attention to Gloria’s so-called fears, that he’d been gone for so long, that he’d ignored—
“Lizabeth, listen, sweetheart …”
The half-mumbled words made me jump. I’d been sure he was alseep. But he continued, the drowsy, muffled words seemingly dragged out of him. His eyes were still hidden in the crook of his elbow and he was talking into the pillow, but I could understand him.
“You got to get past this … this thing you have about your sister. It’s … messing with your …”
The last word was enveloped in a sudden snore and I realized that I’d been tuned out. Across the hall I could hear Gloria’s music starting up again and suddenly I felt like a prisoner in my own house … and worse, in my own mind.
As I watched him sleep, I considered this man in my bed—our bed for quite a while now. Annoyed though I was at his inability to see through Gloria’s obvious attempts at manipulation, still, I was deeply in love with him—this man with whom, for better or worse, I was about to promise to share my life.
I knew he was gentle; I knew he was kind. That he was patient, I had ample opportunity of knowing, none better.
Even the sight of his bald, nut brown scalp, ringed with graying dark hair, inspired the sort of tenderness in me usually reserved for puppies and small fluffy creatures. I knew how I felt—no doubt about my feelings …
I heaved a sigh and sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed. Feelings were all very well. But what, I asked myself—that fluttery teenager-in-love self who kept wanting to ignore the adult self asking the hard questions—what do you really know about Phillip?
Staring out the window at the familiar beautiful view, it was hard to focus on the ugly possibilities raised by Dodie’s letter. The view from my window was, as always, an invitation to meditate—the woods and fields of the farm laid out below me with green fold upon green fold in the nearer distance and then blue shading to rich violet as the ridges marched toward the horizon.
Had it been only three years ago that he had come into my life?
An uneasy memory of the somewhat duplicitous nature of his reason for invading my world—the safe little world I’d built for myself of hard work and grief—nudged at me. You see! He wasn’t what he said. Even though it all got explained—
The springs creaked as Molly leaped up onto the bed, did the obligatory circling and, sighing heavily, lay down in the crook of Phillip’s knees.
There—what about that? The dogs have trusted him from the beginning. Of course James would cuddle up to an ax murderer. But Molly and Ursa have always seemed much more discerning. And how many men would put up with three spoiled dogs the way he does?
He has, in fact, fit into the life here with barely a ripple. No furniture or collections to find a place for, no personal stuff except for a few pictures of his kids. I couldn’t believe how simple moving was for him—a couple of duffel bags of clothes, three boxes of books and odds and ends, and a file cabinet that fit on the backseat of his car. When I asked where the rest of his stuff was, he said that was all there was.
Was it realistic for a man in his fifties to have so little baggage—literal or otherwise? I knew about the ex-wife, now happily remarried; had met the children briefly before they’d vanished off to Australia to pursue whatever it was they were pursuing. Marine biology for Seth, I reminded myself, and Party Hearty 101 for Janie, if her infrequent emails to Phillip were any guide.
The horrible things that Sam and Phillip witnessed in Vietnam decades ago seemed not to have haunted Phillip. Sam had suffered through terrible nightmares, flashbacks, depression, but as far as I could tell, Phillip had put that episode behind him forever.
Different men—different ways of dealing with things,
I told myself, watching the resident pair of redtail hawks wheeling against the deep blue sky. One screamed and dove toward the slope below the house, the sun striking copper glints from his tail feathers. The second continued her lazy arcs then abruptly changed course to head for the tree line of the ridge to the south.
A gang of crows exploded from the trees where the second hawk had gone. Like bits of cinder against the sky, they swirled and coalesced, then moved away in a ragged line.
Behind me Phillip was snoring. Across the hall, another of Gloria’s interminable show tunes was playing—a full chorus this time.
Suddenly I had to get out of the house. Let Gloria weep out more of her story when Phillip finally wakes up, I decided. They don’t need me here for that—the obvious thing I have about my sister is too likely to get in the way.
I pulled off my stained workaday T-shirt, replacing it with a cleaner, newer model, and headed out.
“Gloria,” I called over the racket in her room. “I’m off to the grocery store. For god’s sake, let Phillip get his sleep—you can tell him the rest of your story when he wakes up.”
“Naw, Daddy ain’t doing no good these days. But he’s dead set on keeping the trout business going long as he can. It gives him something to get up for of a morning.”
I’d been engrossed in the magazine covers there beside the checkout counter—wondering who all these people were anyway and why it mattered if they were cheating on each other. But that familiar voice … almost at my ear …
The two men behind me had exchanged the ritual farewells—Let’s go to the house, the first voice had said.
And Reckon I best stay here and pay for these groceries, the other had answered.
Harice Tyler—Brother Tyler to the congregation at the little church I had visited several times for Miss Birdie’s sake—was standing just behind me. Harice Tyler—whose bedroom eyes and slow sensual smile had been so enchanting to me for a brief mad moment that I had imagined—
I could feel a flush rising on my face as I remembered what I had imagined. I inched my cart forward and began shoving my groceries along the motionless belt toward the scanner. The previous customer had paid but now her cellphone was out and she and the cashier were cooing and exclaiming over all forty-three pictures of the new grandchild.
“You got any grandbabies yet, Miz Goodweather?”
